As we approach Spring in Hunt Valley,
MD, 25 Age of Renaissance players gathered at the Marriott for
Enlightenment VIII. With 13 of the top 30 ranked players in attendance
as well as the previous four champions, the weekend promised to
be hard fought.

The first round started Friday evening with two 6-player games
and two five-player games. Tom Browne, defending Champion Jeff
Mullett, top ranked Bill Crenshaw, and Kevin Sudy emerged victorious.
The first round games set the tone for a weekend of extremely
close games with Ken Gutermuth losing by $1 to Kevin and Eric
Wrobel losing by $14 to Bill.

The second round Saturday morning contained five 5-player games
with the arrival of three reinforcements. Unlike the previous
night, where no one purchased all the advances, two managed the
feat. Arthur Field, Eric Wrobel, Pete Staab, and Carl Damcke joined
the winners' list while Bill Crenshaw rose from the winner's game
to become the target for round 3 with his second win. Once again,
games remained close as Steve Simmons fell to Arthur and Mark
Smith to Eric by a mere $1.

The third round once again had five 5-player games. Carl Damcke
and Jeff Mullet each scored their second win of the weekend while
Chris Byrd, Steve Simmons, and Ken Gutermuth joined the winner's
circle for the first time. Bill was denied a third win but managed
a 94% second to remain the overall leader .

Entering the final round Sunday morning, seven players still
had a chance to take away the top laurels and emerge as overall
champion due to the number of high ranking seconds scored thus
far. Bill entered the round as the leader with two wins and a
close second. Double winners Carl Damcke and Jeff Mullett were
still in the hunt. Other previous winners Ken Gutermuth, Arthur
Field, Chris Byrd, and Tom Browne were still alive if they could
win their last game.

At the Round 3 winner's table, Chris Byrd edged Carl Damcke
as a War! loss took a Misery toll on Carl. Tom Browne managed
to gain his second win of the weekend over Arthur Field while
John Coussis gained his first by narrowly defeating Bill Crenshaw.
Ted Simmons joined the winner's circle also.

As the final scores were tallied, Bill Crenshaw's 99% second
in the last game was just enough to propel him to his third Enlightenment
title. The judges (Ken and Bill) were forced to confer to determine
the next three spots as Carl Damcke, Chris Byrd, and Tom Browne
tied at 312 points. Using the best two games score to break the
tie, Carl took second, Chris third, and Tom fourth. Defending
champ Jeff Mullett took fifth place back to CABS land while former
champion John Coussis edged out Arthur Field and Ken Gutermuth
for the last of the laurels in sixth place.

2005 Enlightenment Laurelists

1st: Bill Crenshaw, VA

2nd: Carl Damcke, IL

3rd: Chris Byrd, CT

4th: Tom Browne, PA

5th: Jeff Mullet, OH

6th: John Coussis, IL

Congratulations to all for a great tournament. With Nick Smith
and Terry Coleman not being able to make the trip this year, competition
for the farthest traveler came down to the two Dallas players
Shawn Fox and Ken. Shawn's travels proved to be longer by a mere
eight miles.

There were13 different winners during the weekend, 52% of the
field. Bill Crenshaw scored the most overall points for all four
games with Mark Smith, for the second straight year, gathering
the most four-game totals without receiving wood. Mark placed
the highest, 10th, among those not winning a game during the weekend.

In the 5-player games, Barcelona and London led the way with
four wins each. In the 6-player games, Barcelona, Paris, And Venice
managed one win each.

The average capital bids for the weekend fell from 1.3 last
year to 1.2 this year with the following distribution:

Bid

0

1

2

3

4

5

#

49

17

10

8

7

2

The average bid by country was: Barcelona 1.8, Genoa .6, Hamburg
1.0, London 0.4 (this year's bargain of the weekend recording
4 wins), Paris 1.1, and Venice 1.5. Venice was the only 5 bid
country with two nickel bids.

The weekend saw good brisk play as only two games, both on
Sunday, were penalized for slow play running past the 5 hour time
limit by 10 and 25 minutes.

This year's tournament did not see a single chaos. Once again,
seven players managed to buy out all of the advances in a games
with only Carl Damcke performing this feat twice. Only Pierre
LeBeouf managed to buy every advance and still did not win a plaque
or a game.